Astrophel and Stella

ENGL 514

Dr. Fike

Your assignment is to take one sonnet from the following list and “work it up” (i.e., spend time with it, figure out its meaning, determine the rhyme scheme and meter, and even write a response paper about it if you like).  If you do choose to write a paper, you might well set out to determine either how your sonnet illustrates (or not) what Sidney says in his Defense of Poesie or how your sonnet relates to anything in The Courtier (especially Neo-Platonism).  You may want to bring a copy of your poem for everyone if it is not in GH.  A&S is online at http://www.uoregon.edu/~rbear/stella.html.  Here is the list:

Sonnet 1 (on invention)

Sonnet 5 (on beauty)

Sonnet 10 (on reason)

Sonnet 15 (on poetry)

Sonnet 17 (on love)

Sonnet 31 (on the moon)

Sonnet 39 (on sleep)

Sonnet 41 (on jousting)

Sonnet 53 (on “martial sports”)

Sonnet 71 (on virtue)

Sonnet 108 (on sleep)